THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS
ought to auspicate all our public proceeding on America with the old warning of the Church, sursum corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests not by destroying, but by promoting, the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all that it can be.
They tell us that those of our fellow citizens whose chains we had a little relaxed are enemies to liberty and our free Constitution—not enemies, I presume, to their own liberty. And as to the Constitution, until we give them some share in it, I do not know on what pretense we can examine into their opinions about a business in which they have no interest or concern. But, after all, are we equally sure that they are ad-
- ↑ From his speech to the electors of Bristol in 1780.
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